So I don't know if anybody knows this other than the folks I have on Facebook, but I've been in the process of rebuilding my 3S (well... mostly rebuilding). A little back story for those new to my car: I bought it at 300,000km and it ran great, but around 320k the turbo went out, cats got plugged, and inbetween that I had a whole whack of coolant hoses blow as well. Basically, everything that was going to go wrong started to. Since replacing all that, I put another 30,000 on the car for a total of 50,000km since I bought it. I delivered pizza in it, drove in the snow, traveled to Quesnel, Ocean Shores (had to replace an alternator on the I-5 with some help from some gracious fellow MR2 owners!), and had many more adventures. This past summer, I realized it was getting pretty rough with all the oil leaks and obvious lack of reliability, and although it still ran fine, I decided the time for a teardown and rebuild was in order. Especially since I am an apprentice tech at Toyota, I have access to all the tools, parts, help, and shop time that I need.
So I removed the engine with the help of Jordan, my boyfriend at the time, in our shop at home. This was fairly easy. After the engine was out, the transmission was removed. I inspected the clutch disc and figured now was as good a time as any to replace it.
A technician from work with a Tundra came out to pick up the engine for a case of beer, and brought it to the shop where I hooked her up to an engine stand and endured the abuse from everybody. "Have fun with that one!" "I think you have an oil leak!" "Hey where's the rest of the car?" "Is that thing done yet?" etc. etc...
So we started with taking off the manifolds, and all the bits and bobs all over the engine... harness, turbo piping, turbo, vacuum lines, coolant lines, throttle body, T-VIS, fuel rail, etc... to get to the head itself. The valve cover came off and then we undid the head bolts without removing the camshafts.
Once the head was off, was able to get a solid look at the condition of the engine. The pistons were a bit carboned up, but nothing too bad. The best news was the lack of a ridge on the top of the cylinder walls, and a visible crosshatch still on the bores. As long as they measured up, this would be a good sign!
The head once it came off:
The block:
The old head gasket:
Cylinder #2:
Cylinder #3: